Tanker With Russian Gas for Boston Makes Mid-Atlantic U-Turn

Three weeks after picking up a controversial cargo in the U.K., a liquefied natural gas tanker made a U-turn one day before it was due to deliver it in Boston.

The course

The Gaselys vessel that was set to arrive on the U.S. East Coast on Saturday is now heading back toward Spain’s port of Algeciras near Gibraltar, and should get there next week, according to the ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

The vessel is carrying cargo from a storage tank at a terminal near London, which has earlier received the first fuel from the $27 billion Yamal LNG plant in Russia’s icy north.

The destination

The cargo was sent to Boston after the polar chill that gripped the U.S. northeast earlier this month, has raised to record high prices. The shipment drew the attention because some of its gas is under financial sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 2014 after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimea.

“We have still not canceled the Everett port call for Gaselys,” Madeleine Overgaard, an LNG market analyst at Kpler, said by email. “Her course is currently not very different from the average delivery at Everett in 2017, she is probably just diverting to delay arrival.”

Russian gas

The Yamal LNG project, co-owned by Russia’s Novatek PJSC, Total SA, China Natural Petroleum Corp. and China’s Silk Road Fund, started production in December despite U.S. financial sanctions imposed in 2014, because of Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. It plans to deliver 14 spot cargoes by April, when long-term contracts kick in.